Hanoi in TripAdvisor’s best destinations for 2019

The Vietnamese capital is 15th in a list of 25 best destinations the travel website TripAdvisor picked for this year.

TripAdvisor wrote: “The charming Vietnamese capital has aged well, preserving the old quarter, monuments and colonial architecture, while making room for modern developments alongside. Lakes, parks, shady boulevards and more than 600 temples and pagodas add to the appeal of this city, which is easily explored by taxi.”

The site recommended the Old Quarter, Vietnamese Women’s Museum and Vietnam Museum of Ethnology to first-time visitors.

The Temple of Literature, Van Mieu, in Hanoi. Photo by Shutterstock/Mikhail Gnatkovskiy

In the list of 25 best destinations, TripAdvisor picked for its Travelers’ Choice Awards in the Reviewers’ Favorite Destination category, London (the U.K.) was number one, followed by Paris (France), Rome (Italy), Crete (Greece), and Bali (Indonesia).

In the regional rankings, Hanoi came fourth after Bali, Phuket (Thailand) and Siem Reap (Cambodia).

Hanoi ranked 8th on TripAdvisor’s global travel list in 2014 and 2018, and also made into the top 10 in 2015 and 2016.

The Hanoi Opera House at the city’s center. Photo by Shutterstock/Danny lacob

In the first three months of 2019 Hanoi received more than 7.4 million visitors, a 10.6 percent increase year-on-year, according to the municipal Department of Tourism. They included 1.8 million foreigners, a 15.5 percent increase.